1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for transferring a stick with a food product such as a sausage suspended therefrom.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, the sausage is manufactured by stuffing a natural casing or an artificial casing with a meat emulsion or the like, by suspending from a stick a linked casing with the meat emulsion stuffed therein, and by cooking the sausage suspended from the stick in a smokehouse.
In the manufacture of such a sausage, the stick with the sausage suspended therefrom is normally conveyed to the place of a cooking process through a conveying apparatus and a smoking truck. To transfer such a stick onto the conveying apparatus, there have been proposed a transfer apparatus in which one end of the stick is clamped and held to move the stick horizontally, as disclosed in JP-UM-B-6-21351, as well as an apparatus in which two portions of the stick are restrained and held and the stick is moved in a horizontal direction and in a vertical direction, as disclosed in JP-A-2003-180239.
Furthermore, the sausage is normally inspected and corrected in a state in which it is suspended from the stick. As shown in FIGS. 35A and 35B, such sticks 4 each having the sausage 2 suspended therefrom are normally conveyed in a direction Y by a conveying means 10 in a state in which the sticks 4 with the respective sausages 2 suspended therefrom are accumulated in mutually parallel rows. The sticks 4 with the respective sausages 2 suspended therefrom are sequentially transferred from the conveying means 10 onto a smoking truck 98 in front of a smokehouse, are accumulated in multiple stages, and are sent to the smokehouse.
In the transfer apparatus disclosed in JP-UM-B-6-21351, a clamping member for clamping one end of a stick reciprocates between a carrying-in position at which one end of the stick is clamped and a conveyor supplying position. In a case where a plurality of clamping members and lowering means are provided for one conveyor, since it is necessary to supply the sticks to conveyor portions where the sticks are not placed, the waiting time until the lowering of the clamping members is prolonged, so that the return of the clamping member to the carrying-in position is delayed correspondingly. There is a problem in that while the clamping member is not returned to the carrying-in position, an ensuing stick cannot be set on the clamping member, so that productivity declines.
In addition, since the stick is supported in a cantilevered manner to move the stick horizontally by clamping and holding one end of the stick with the sausage suspended therefrom, deflection is likely to occur in the stick, and deformation of the stick occurs due to the deflection of the stick. Moreover, there is a problem in that since the stick is supported in the cantilevered manner, if insufficiency occurs in the clamping force, the dropping of the stick results.
Furthermore, the transfer apparatus disclosed in JP-UM-B-6-21351 does not transfer an automatically supplied stick to the conveying apparatus, but transfers a manually supplied stick to the conveying apparatus. Therefore, this transfer apparatus is not suitable for labor saving.
In the transfer apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2003-180239, since the movement of the stick for delivering the sausage from hooks onto the stick and the movement of the stick with the sausage suspended therefrom to a stick placing table are effected by the same fixed hand section 41, two horizontally rotating arms are required so as not to lower productivity. In addition, since the two horizontally rotating arms are rotated, a large space is required for the movement of the stick. Furthermore, in this transfer apparatus, the other end portion of the stick, which is not restrained and held and is not positionally restricted, is inserted into loops which are suspended from the hooks and swing, so that there is a need to enlarge the loops. For this reason, the hooks are provided with mechanisms for enlarging the loops.
Furthermore, since the sticks 4 with the respective sausages 2 suspended therefrom are accumulated on both the conveying means 10 and the smoking truck 98, there is a problem in that it is difficult to perform the operation of inspecting and correcting the sausage 2.